


pelagic

by erzi



Category: Twisted-Wonderland (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Multi, sorry mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26493958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erzi/pseuds/erzi
Summary: Unlike Jade, Floyd's teasing of Azul is overt; he does not have the patience or fondness for mind games. If it amuses him, he will pursue it.Jade did not think—and a fool for that, to be wrong about his own brother—he did not think Floyd would rise to this level, to their basest nature: if you want something, it must become yours.Calm logic for Jade, wild-hearted impulse for Floyd. But they're of the same blood, the same in heart. Floyd had not lied—no one but he knows Jade better. It is Jade's magic that allows him to extract the truth from the weak who should meet his eye. It is Floyd who readshim.
Relationships: Azul Ashengrotto/Floyd Leech/Jade Leech
Comments: 18
Kudos: 155





	pelagic

Azul's wayward curl bobs as he speaks. With his body angled forward, the curl brushes the corner of his mouth, and he flicks it back with every other word. But as he—beautifully overlaid in rippling blues from the lounge's walls—carries on speaking, the curl doesn't stay in place.

Jade isn't sure what is more distracting: the incessant motion, easily stopped if Azul simply tucked his hair behind his ear; or the way Azul's mouth moves, rolling off terms and contracts, logistics and finances. Poetry of the ruthless.

Then, "Jade." Said without warning or affection.

That's how Jade loves it best.

"Yes, Azul?" he says, innocence perfected.

Azul doesn't believe it. Good. "I don't think you were listening to half of what I said."

He puts a hand over his heart, sliding on a too-neat sadness. "You gravely wound me. You were listing the contracts you'd formed this fiscal week in the dormitories' alphabetical order. You had left off with Savanaclaw. Overall, we saw a ten percent increase—"

"Fine, fine; you were listening."

He hadn't, in truth, but in watching Azul's lips move he had read them, had known what he was saying without needing to hear. It is an art he has practiced after countless of these meetings. Practiced not for ignoring Azul, but to challenge himself in predicting what will be said. A means to keep himself sharp. To prove no one knows Azul like he does.

Azul continues their earnings summary, and Jade mourns that air does not lend the same quality to sound as does water. If it's poetry to hear him on land, then under the sea—

Movement from the corner of his eye. Jade’s vision flits behind Azul, the lounge's pleasantly dim background defining into Floyd, sitting backwards on a counter stool, the gold of his open eye too bright. One of his arms hangs over the backrest. The other he has extended in front of him, fingers curled save for thumb and forefinger, a modicum of space between them slowly, slowly pinched close. His grin is lazy with the satisfaction of a carnivore who won't go hungry for the day.

Jade's brows furrow the slightest. What is Floyd doing?

He'd not thought the momentary distraction was obvious, but he feels Azul's glance in his direction pointed as a hook, then curving to where Jade's own eyes are on Floyd, whose grin only grows at Azul's displeasure.

"Hey, Azul," Floyd drawls, "I figured out how to squeeze ya." He unpinches his fingers and closes them again.

"Stop that. It's a nuisance."

"No-o-ope. I always wanted to do this, but you won't let me. I'm gonna do this instead."

Azul sighs. "Fine. You're not part of this conversation, anyway." He turns to Jade. "But you. Don't let him divert your attention for something so inane."

"My apologies." His smile is inevitably incited. "I promise to listen rapturously to you." Half-perfidious, half-honest.

Azul returns it. "Yes, you'd better. I wouldn't need you otherwise, would I?"

This is their game—both predators, circling the other, aware they could become prey with the most insignificant misstep in their stalking.

And from the bar, Floyd groans, causing both Jade and Azul to turn to him. "Maybe I should squeeze you both together," he says, widening the distance between his hands to fit Jade into the space he sees. "Your flirting is annoying."

" _Flirting_?" Azul sputters. In the lounge's liquid lighting, the red coming up on his cheeks becomes violet. A shade like his hair. "I am not— _we_ are not— Floyd, this is why you are not involved in these discussions."

Azul's was the first reaction, immediate and loud. 

Jade, for his part, has gone still as ice. It's him who Floyd observes, curiously, and with a tinge of malice.

Flirting. Is that what it is? Certainly Azul has intrigued Jade for the last few years, and certainly he has come to understand his psychology and how to tease it to his liking. But it's been a... curiosity. Flirting? If Floyd is saying it, then—

Well. It would be interesting. The most unexpected thing that could happen, and to his very self. Is this not a prime example of what he seeks?

"Jade, refute that," Azul says, whipping his head to him, poorly covering up panic, and it's always been quite endearing when Azul's carefully cool façade crumbles, hasn't it? As has it been to disobey him, in subtle ways; in ways that get them both what they want through different measures for each.

"He won't," Floyd says, smugly, rising from his seat, "'cause nobody knows him better than me. If I wanna squeeze Azul, then he does, too."

Azul whirls to Floyd. "What—" he starts, but Floyd leaning in to messily press his mouth to Azul's swallows the rest.

Azul makes a noise and— does _something_ , or becomes it; he is, for a moment, pliable at his edges, needy and vulnerable. Someone else. It is only a moment, so brief it could have been Jade's imagination, because then he shoves Floyd off. Floyd is laughing, thrilled at Azul's uncharacteristic outburst of violence.

It had happened so abruptly Jade had not had the chance to react. Floyd stuffs his hands in his pockets as he backpedals. Jade has not moved, but there are cracks in his iced-over blood.

Though the leather seat beneath him complains as he inches forward, not knowing if it's to offer Azul pretended condolences or to impulsively one-up his brother. _Him_ , with impulses. Unthinkable. And yet.

"That's not _squeezing_!" Azul is saying, the violet-that-should-be-red deeper on his skin. 

"Aww. You liked it."

Azul's glare at Floyd is poisonous enough to down a leviathan. But that's all he does: glare. For all his orders of Jade refuting Floyd, Azul himself does not. He waves Floyd away, his other hand covering the bottom half of his face.

"Whatever," Floyd says. "This was boring to listen to." The click of his shoes on the tiles dulls to nothing, and then the lounge is simply a fishbowl with Jade and Azul the only souls in it.

"Moving on," Azul says, rearranging the stack of papers. He pauses. Glides his tongue over his lower lip—he _glides his_ _tongue_ over his lower lip—quicker than any eyes except Jade's would register. And the color hasn't faded from his face.

It's that single gesture of his that thaws Jade like spring has come, and so he can speak. "My, Azul. But it doesn't seem you're heeding yourself very much." 

He is not usually this forthright. Their relationship requires careful balance. If a food chain becomes stilted in the favor of any creature, the food web as a whole will collapse.

Azul notices the raising of their stakes and looks up, mouth already open in a counterargument, a line between his eyebrows.

Then he stills. Searches Jade's face as if he's never seen him before. Places his hand to his bottom lip, quietly meeting the top. 

Jade blinks. Is Azul seeing Floyd on Jade's own face? Is he thinking of Floyd's confident statement that Jade would do the same? 

Did he remember Jade didn't refute that as asked?

It must be one of those reasons. It could even be them all. But it does not matter. Jade keeps his meaningless smile thin as he flourishes a handkerchief from a pocket, places a single finger to tip Azul's chin up, and unhurriedly wipes Azul's mouth.

Where Floyd had left his mark, Jade removes it, itself his own possession. Because for the kindness this act could be if witnessed by an errant onlooker, Jade is Jade, Azul is Azul, and there is never any mutual kindness in their motions. 

Azul is silent, but even in the poor lighting Jade sees his eyes widen. They watch Jade, in turn watching his own hand dab Azul's mouth clean. And then it is done, the handkerchief snapped of creases, the sound startling Azul, Jade himself straightening so firmly that were he human his spine would have cracked.

"Better?" he asks, with a cognizant, even quirk to his lips, peering at Azul as he stands.

Jade is not answered. Azul's chest is puffed with unspoken irritation and embarrassment. The closest the two of them could come to betrayal. He gives him one last glare, even riper with those emotions, before sweeping out of the lounge.

They hadn't finished reviewing their contract and earnings. They are not supposed to leave that unfinished.

Had Jade's insincere benevolence been too much?

He looks at the handkerchief. The unrequited kiss—if it could be called that—that stains it. 

Unlike Jade, Floyd's teasing of Azul is overt; he does not have the patience or fondness for mind games. If it amuses him, he will pursue it. 

Jade did not think—and a fool for that, to be wrong about his own brother—he did not think Floyd would rise to this level, to their basest nature: if you want something, it must become yours. 

Calm logic for Jade, wild-hearted impulse for Floyd. But they're of the same blood, the same in heart. Floyd had not lied—no one but he knows Jade better. It is Jade's magic that allows him to extract the truth from the weak who should meet his eye. It is Floyd who reads _him_.

He meticulously folds the handkerchief into his pocket and walks to their shared room, footsteps echoing in their lonesome watery halls.

* * *

A shared room, and each half its own: Jade's side immaculate; Floyd's a typhoon's aftermath. But that they occupy the same space, share the things they don't need doubles of, and have their individual interests for reasons identical as their faces—is it any wonder they have both fallen for the same person?

Floyd is sleeping on his side, impossible to tell if he is asleep or pretending. Though of the two, he is not the pretender. He can be counted on to be honest to an offensive fault. It is never founded on good faith, but what others see is who he truly is.

It's an admirable trait. Opposite of how Azul comports himself. There's no wonder in him being drawn to that, either.

"Floyd," Jade says, sitting at the edge of his brother's bedside.

Floyd stirs. Twists back, blinking blearily. "What?" He'd kissed Azul not ten minutes ago and sounds like he's been interrupted from a ten-hour slumber.

The question anyone would ask is _Why did you do that?_ But Jade knows the answer—because it's all someone like Floyd knows how to do, this taking and provoking in his knowing he is not alone in wanting Azul. "How long?" he asks instead. That is all he needs. Within it two questions are contained, and despite appearances, Floyd is perceptive.

One: _how long have you known not you, but we, felt like this?_

Two: _how long have you waited to do that?_

Floyd sits up to stretch luxuriously. "Mmm. Dunno." 

An unsatisfactory answer, but definitely unsurprising. Floyd is not one to concern himself over the details. And, regardless of his magic, Jade is not one to dwell over something as personal as his own heart's matters.

"But," Floyd continues, "why do you care?" He eyes Jade up and down, and it feels to Jade as if his own reflection is judging him. 

"I must admit I shouldn't. It simply would have been enlightening to know."

"You were never gonna do anything about it, anyway." The sharpness of his teeth-filled grin could shatter pearls. "Not unless I did something first. So what did you end up doing?"

While Floyd is not the one to control puppets as Jade and Azul deftly do, he can see the strings just the same.

"I wiped your filth from his mouth," Jade says, smiling.

"Hey, he liked it when I kissed him. I could tell."

"And he liked it when I undid it, as well."

Floyd cackles. "Even when you're being awful, you're polite."

"Aren't I always?"

"Awful or polite?"

Jade's smile could make coral bleach. 

Floyd laughs again. "And what did Azul do? Since you didn't show up with him, I guess he got huffy and ran away?"

"Indeed. I suspect he's thinking of ways to increase our duties even further."

"Man, it's like he's _asking_ us to chase after him."

"He might be." Jade pauses, thinking. "No; he most definitely is. If we do not go to him today, he will dismiss our behavior as an escalation of our humor, and not realize…" He falters, unusual for him, but more to say this out loud: "Realize we are being woefully honest."

"He already knows we think octopus tastes good. If he thinks we're kidding, it's on him." His tongue darts out. "But I think I've done the three of us a favor."

Lesser people would fret over falling for the same person as their brother, and of the imbalance of love in odd numbers. Jade and Floyd need not even address it. They've always shared well. Neither do they need to worry over Azul picking only one of them: each provides something the other does not, and Azul is nothing if greedy. Together, Azul would have it all.

Jade stands, smoothing his slacks, folding his hands in front of him, and then inclining his head to the door. "Shall we go fetch our octopus, then?"

Floyd fluidly gets to his feet, smile unbothered by the sleep he'd been roused from.

* * *

They do not go to Azul's room. Despite his indignation and hasty departure from the lounge, he had not finished his work. He'd go back to the lounge, with as much concentration as he could muster with a kiss there-and-gone from his lips.

It's past closing time and the lounge itself is draped by dark except the slanted light from Azul's office. They are used to poor lighting—here as much as back home—and they would not have struggled if it were fully black, but the light guides them of its own.

Jade knocks. Etiquette even now.

"Come in," is the reply, muffled by the door.

He opens the door the rest of the way, light spilling over he and Floyd, awash in the same paleness as Azul, who is sitting on a sofa rather than his desk. Floyd slips below Jade's arm to sit on the plush floor by Azul's feet. He reclines his head on the sofa, meeting Azul's mild scowl with an unperturbed smirk.

Jade hides a smile behind his hand as he walks in, rounding the room to stand behind Azul. They've trapped him from both sides. "You didn't ask us to return and help?" he asks.

"Neither of you were being particularly helpful earlier," Azul says, delicately pushing his glasses up his nose. "So, no."

Floyd frowns. "Jade was the distracted one. I wasn't doing anything."

"Yes, Floyd." His eyes keep to the papers, but he does no longer bother pretending to read them.

Floyd frowns further, noting the problem.

"Don't be underconfident, Floyd," Jade says, throwing a small smile at him, marking the beginning of their ploy. "You only did nothing regarding our _business_."

In a prideful final act of resistance, Azul may not look at them, but he is listening all too well. The tips of his ears are colored; his mouth is drawn in. 

"Yeah," Floyd says, grinning back, "you're right, Jade." He rests his chin on Azul's knee, whose hands twitch—to push? To pull? "Neither you or Azul were ever gonna be the ones to go against the current."

"If I tried anything first, he would have been even less inclined to believe it. I'm the one who helps with the details of his schemes. He would think I was up to something if I said anything like"—he leans down to Azul's ear, reveling in its warmth—"you and my brother are the most important people to me."

And then he is yanked, a hand possessive on his chin. He loses his footing as Azul pulls him to his eye level, Jade's difference of height and thus power lost. Jade flicks his eyes down, because Azul has simultaneously pulled up Floyd. Jade and Floyd had surrounded him, thinking him at their mercy, but Azul has always been one to exceed expectations. And is that not part of why they follow him? Why they love him?

"Both of you," Azul sternly starts, though his eyes are crinkled with self-satisfaction as he looks between the shocked pair of them, "have gotten somewhat ahead of yourselves today. Did you think I'd flee for good from what you did?" His fingers tighten on their chins, smooth silk on smoother skin, and Jade can't reply even if he wanted to. 

He chances a glance at Floyd, whose gaze on Azul has the same surprise and hunger and worship whirling in Jade. 

"This is a three-way partnership," Azul says. "It's mutualistic. We are not in the sea, where you're content as parasites. We stay together because we work better together than alone. Of course, I've had time to understand you during the course of our partnership. It wouldn't make me a good businessman if I didn't understand the people I've chosen to work with me, would it?"

Still, they can't say anything. 

Though Jade's heart beats a little firmer.

" _You_ ," Azul says, down to Floyd, "do whatever you like regardless of the consequences. While _you_ ," he adds, the ceiling light flowing off his glasses as he looks up to Jade, "consider the consequences before acting. Floyd's behavior I can dismiss as his whims. It's that you immediately did the same as him, in your own convoluted way, that means neither of you were being facetious. Nor am I." Azul's voice hadn't quite wavered, but it had— _softened_. He lowers his hands, letting them go. 

Jade has always been good with his words. Not one will come to him now. He must take a moment to gather what Azul has said to form his own coherencies. He presses a gloved finger to his cheek, Azul's grip a fleeting ghost, and one he would not mind to be caught by again.

Or to catch himself.

He needs no words as he reaches for Azul's hand, fingers curled under his, and brings it to his lips.

Floyd, always quick on the uptake and never one to be left behind, takes Azul's other hand to do the same.

"Greedy for the both of us," Jade murmurs, more to himself, fond nevertheless.

Azul hears. "Obviously. You're both halves of a whole. Why would I not want the whole?"

Jade smiles with all the honesty no contract could hope to strive for. 

"We'll ditch you if you ever get boring, y'know," Floyd says, twining his fingers between Azul's, pressing their gloved hands palm-to-palm.

"I assure you," Azul says, smooth as ink, "that will never happen." 

Floyd laughs, jumping to his feet, Azul stumbling with him. He twirls behind Azul, throwing his arms around his neck, leaning heavily on him. Azul doesn't protest; he closes an eye from the abruptness and force of the contact, but there's a quirk to his mouth good enough to kiss away.

Which is what Floyd does.

Jade is chuckling to himself as he comes up in front of Azul, sliding his arms around his waist with the utmost care, and sinking his teeth to the exposed curve of his neck with as much refinement. 

Azul is held between him and Floyd, and so he should not sink. But he does, just a little, and how delightful it is. He might be greedy for wanting both of them, but are they not as greedy for wanting to be had together, and to reduce Azul to this?

 _Mutualistic_ , Azul had called them. Yes; none of them, for their own reasons, would go to such lengths for nothing in exchange. They are not a heartwarming symbiosis when each has their goals for that partnership's existence. But in nature, what isn't calculated?

The law is eat or be eaten. Here, among the three of them, the dichotomy blurs. Azul is the one to withdraw from Floyd, to tilt Jade's face down to him, to be emboldened enough to be the one to kiss him.

Azul tastes like the ocean, in its inherent salt; in its nostalgic sweetness of home; in its cold—the depths do not see an abundance of light. And in its warmth. It is the first layer of the ocean, something that waits, something that must be swam to if it is to be known. So when Azul kisses Jade, Jade kisses back, forgetting to breathe; it's the newness of being on land and yet of being in these uncharted waters.

He breathes when Azul breaks away, again in control (though, deep down, when isn't he?). Air comes in all at once, as if he'd been deprived of it for years. Maybe he had, if this is what kissing Azul is like. 

Azul's mouth and neck are pink from his and Floyd's provocations. The pink on his ears, darker than earlier, is simply the consequences. "I think," he says, the sheen on his lips terribly distracting, but only half as much as the hint of gravel in his voice, "that my office is no place to conduct this kind of business."

No; that's what is most distracting yet. "Oh?" Jade says, the grin helpless. "Where do you propose we go, then?"

Floyd tucks his chin onto the crook of Azul's neck, matching Jade's expression. "Our room's closest."

"That'll do," Azul says, fixing his bow tie as if it means anything. What does mean something, maybe even everything, is when he pries one of Jade's hands from his waist and one of Floyd's from his neck and leads them out the door. Reciprocity in all terms.

From the office's light to the lounge's dark to the ambiguity of the halls they are led because they choose to follow, always with one of their footsteps to fill the silence in echoes of echoes, greater together than on their own.

**Author's Note:**

> the ocean is divided into various layers. the [pelagic zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagic_zone) is where most fish live; it is the open ocean. the pelagic zone itself has different sublayers but those were Too esoteric and not as pretty for a fic title lol


End file.
